Tooth and Nail
by Sugar-Hype-Queen
Summary: With only salt and dreams for protection, you do what you can. Late Halloween fic, KakaIru


Tooth and Nail

* * *

_Avoid and pass us by, O curse,  
Even as a burning fire a pond.  
Here strike him down that curses us,  
As Heaven's lightning strikes a tree._  
-from the **Atharva Veda**

oOo

Iruka woke up clutching salt in his hands.

He sat up in bed, shivering in his pajama bottoms. Salt was all over the sheets. He stared. He didn't remember doing this. He tried, but all that came to mind were snatches and fragments of a dream- something about fishing. He shook his head. Probably Naruto trying to prank him. The boy even left the bedroom window open: very sloppy. Frigid October air curled around Iruka, raising gooseflesh on his arms. Rubbing his closed eyes with a sigh, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, anticipating the bite of cold hardwood under his feet.

The floor was wet.

"Naruto," Iruka moaned, exasperated.

He'd barely woken up, and he already wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed. Iruka shook his head and shifted his feet, preparing to stand up and face the day.

Something soft nudged his heel, and something sharp dug into his toe.

He looked down.

His feet were resting in a pool of winedark blood, strewn with ivory teeth. A pulpy mess of flesh, partially obscured by matted white hair, rested against his heel.

Iruka gagged, choked, and screamed.

oOo

He scrambled backwards on the bed, almost slipping on the slick red. Granules of salt jumped and skittered. The stench of blood was suddenly overpowering.

He snatched up the kunai under his pillow and flashed through the signs for a transportation jutsu.

oOo

Iruka leaned against the cement wall, panting. He was outside Raidou and Genma's balcony. He leaned his head back, swallowed, and slowly looked down at his feet: they were perfectly clean. He blinked, and lifted his leg up to check the soles of his feet, even peeking between his toes: not a drop, not a smear.

Iruka slid down to the ground and stared out at Konoha. The weak dawn light was swallowed by thick banks of fog. The streets he knew and loved seemed distant, somehow. Off. Vague and grey.

"Kai!" he muttered.

Nothing changed.

He shivered.

"Iruka? What the hell are you doing out-"

Iruka whirled around, kunai in hand. Raidou stared back at him.

Silence stretched.

"You need coffee," declared Raidou.

oOo

"I'm telling you, you need to take a break from those snot-nosed brats," grumbled Genma, sprawled lazily across the couch. "They are _literally _driving your ass crazy."

Iruka, sipping from a mug of black coffee, promptly flipped him off. Raidou sat down next to Genma, taking a gulp from his own mug.

"He has a point," said Raidou, voice still rough with sleep. "Maybe you shouldn't go in today."

Iruka frowned.

"Look, here comes his stubborn face," chuckled Genma.

"I appreciate your concern," Iruka ground out. "But I'm pretty sure it was just a bad dream. I probably just stayed up too late grading papers, ate something that didn't agree with me, and... got a little spooked. That's all."

"Who exactly are you trying to convince?"

Iruka rolled his eyes.

"Go ahead," said Genma.

Eyes closed, he rolled his senbon from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"Your choice. Go home, get dressed, and go deal with your brats if you want to. But if we have to tie you to a bed so you don't burn yourself out- well, we've got ropes, silk ties, and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs with your name on 'em."

Iruka laughed.

"It's Friday. I won't move a muscle this weekend, okay?"

"Good," replied Raidou. "Sometimes I worry you're going to work yourself to death."

oOo

Iruka stood outside his apartment door.

A thin white line stretched across the doorway: salt. He squatted down and touched it, frowning. Something on the door caught his eye- furrows gouged in the wood.

Scratch marks.

"A cat," he whispered, de-activating the chakra lock and opening the door.

He shut the door without looking at it. He didn't look at the scratch marks, at the way the lines were spaced like the fingers on a hand. It was just a cat.

Who would scratch his door?

He reached his bedroom. A thick strip of bonewhite salt coated the door sill, and the floor beside his bed was perfectly clean.

"Of course it's clean," he muttered.

Why would there be a body in his bedroom?

_(white hair just like Mizuki)_

Iruka walked over to his bed, sat down, and buried his head in his hands.

His mind wandered. He thought about his dream- a flash of water, a fishing pole... someone beside him. He thought of the Wave proverb about salt- _For cooking, for cleansing, and keeping evil at bay._

He thought:

_Maybe I was sleepwalking, and I'm the one that scattered all this salt._

Maybe one of my students did that to the door.

Maybe it's time for a psyche evaluation.

oOo

The first thing he noticed when he opened the door to his classroom was a shock of pale (white?) hair. A surge of mind-numbing panic slammed into him before he realized who he was looking at.

"K-Kakashi sensei?" Iruka sputtered.

"Maa, how nice of you to join us, sensei."

He was leaning casually against Iruka's desk, eye arced up in a lazy smile.

"They called _you _in to sub for me?"

"Don't sound so excited about it, you'll make me blush."

Iruka felt heat rise to his face.

"I'm sorry, that didn't come out the way I meant it to," he sighed, rubbing at his scar. "What I meant was... well, this is a pre-genin class. Surely there was at least one chuunin available?"

Kakashi shrugged, all cool nonchalance. The slouch in his back screamed boredom, but there was an amused tilt to his eye. Iruka did not stare, because he was a grown man, damnit, and he had his dignity. He tried to will away his blush.

"Tsunade's orders."

Iruka quirked a brow.

"You ticked her off, didn't you?"

Kakashi had the grace to look sheepish.

"Mmm, is it that obvious?"

Iruka shook his head before turning to survey the twenty-odd students. Each child was scribbling enthusiastically on their papers, making use of several large boxes of crayons. Some of the sneakier ones, Iruka noted with disapproval (and maybe a little pride), were successfully swiping supplies from their classmates.

"I told them to draw their precious people," Kakashi explained.

"And...?" asked Iruka.

"And what?" Kakashi queried, the picture of innocence.

"You bribed them. An assignment like that isn't enough to keep them this enthusiastic, even if they think you're hot stuff."

"I'm hot stuff, sensei?" Kakashi leered.

Iruka scowled, feeling the blood rush to his face. It was too early in the morning for this.

"Kakashi," he warned, voice dark.

"Maaa, now that you mention it, I may have offered a shiny new katana to whoever drew the best picture..."

Iruka felt his temple throb.

"Kakashi, I think I'm in good company when I say that I worry for your sanity."

"You wound me, sensei."

Iruka rolled his eyes, walking over to stand beside Kakashi and more closely inspect his domain. "At least they're all working," he sighed, "And my classroom is still relatively clean."

"About that," began Kakashi, "I noticed something a little odd. There was salt on your windowsill. Nama-sensei said there was salt on all the other windowsills, as well, and across every entrance to the building. There was no sign of intrusion, so it seems like a prank, albeit a very odd... Iruka?"

His feet were moving, but he didn't feel like he was the one controlling them.

Strange.

He was approaching the window. Distantly, he was aware of Kakashi's stare drilling into his back. That was fine. He'd had worse. The scars were there to prove it.

He opened the window (_the salt was gone why why now how would they keep it out)_ and looked outside. Fog twisted darkly into the trees. Thunder rumbled somewhere to the west, deep and awful.

Something out there was watching him.

"Iruka. Turn around. _Now_."

Startled, Iruka turned to face Kakashi. Gone was the bored slouch. He looked every inch a jounin- tense, guarded. Deadly.

Iruka rubbed at his scar, bewildered, embarassed and uneasy.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. I-"

"Your nose," Kakashi interrupted, voice eerily calm. "Your nose is bleeding."

Eyes still locked with Kakashi's, Iruka frowned and lifted a finger to his nose.

It came away wet.

Iruka didn't look at his fingers. He turned to the window again. Something turned unpleasantly in his stomach. "Let me go take care of this," he said distractedly, swiftly shutting the window.

He made his way for the exit, swiping a few tissues from a box on his desk.

His hands were shaking.

oOo

Iruka stared down the drain of the bathroom sink.

Drops of his blood clung to the white surface, bright, glinting sharply under the halogen lighting. He turned the faucet on and watched the water dragged it away, down the drain and out of sight.

His mind raced.

Kakashi said salt was across every entrance. Iruka had woken up with salt all over the bed, across all his doorways. It dawned on him that Naruto had left on a mission to Sand two days ago.

Naruto didn't open the window.

_Maybe I was sleepwalking, and I'm the one that scattered all this salt._

But why? To keep something out, something away? The thing outisde the window-

"I'm being ridiculous," Iruka muttered. "This is ridiculous."

The bleeding had stopped. Iruka took a deep breath and began the treck back to his classroom, ignoring the low, persistent hum of fear in the back of his mind.

oOo

The little girl was coughing. She'd started coughing shortly after Iruka left the room, and it seemed to be getting worse. None of the other children seemed to notice.

Kakashi loped over to her, frowning under his mask.

"Minako-chan, are you alright?"

The little girl shrugged. Her bright red hair was scraped into two pigtails, little wisps falling down to bother hazel eyes. She pushed them back, concentrating on her drawing despite the harsh coughs that wracked her small frame. Kakashi sighed and prepared to fetch the poor thing a glass of water- but paused. Something wasn't right. He peered down at her drawing: there was a colorful glob that looked vaguely like a woman, a colorful blob that looked vaguely like a dog (or cat?), and, and off to the side, there was a black...figure, surrounded by a chaotic crayon mess of red and grey.

The girl was hard at work with the grey crayon, but a particularly strong cough made her drop it. Her hands braced against the table as she began to hack, as if something were caught in her throat.

Kakashi watched as the little girl coughed up teeth.

oOo

Iruka trembled.

Something felt wrong, all wrong. He ran the rest of the way back to his classroom.  
oOo

"Kakashi sensei? What's the matter?"

Kakashi didn't respond. He stayed where he was, hunched in front of Minako-chan. Iruka huffed in annoyance. This was no time for the man to be infuriating!

Three smallish white teeth were on the table in front of Minako-chan, who was scribbling busily at her picture, tongue stuck out in concentration.

Kakashi looked on stoically.

"Kakashi?" he repeated, more urgently.

Slowly, Iruka reached out and touched the man's shoulder. Kakashi's gloved hand reached up to cover his own. The jounin began to speak.

"This little girl... just coughed up teeth. All of _her _teeth are still in her mouth. I checked. It's not a genjutsu- I checked that, too. The children are almost completely unresponsive, and seem to have developed a sudden fascination with drawing decidedly omnious figures."

Iruka paled.

Kakashi turned to face him.

"I could tell the second you walked in this room," Kakashi whispered, "That something has you on edge. What did you see when you looked out the window? What are you not telling me?"

Iruka swallowed, shook his head.

"I- I guess, I," he began, the words tripping over each other. He glanced towards the window and tried again. "Well, I woke up," he began, and found himself divulging the events of his morning: the salt, the body, the scratches. None of the children glanced at them. Kakashi listened intently and did not let go of his hand.

Just as Iruka finished, the window slammed open.

oOo

Nothing stirred outside. But a wave of killing intent thicker than the fog itself rolled into the room like a wave, making Iruka's blood freeze and his heart pound.

Each and every child in his classroom began to cry.

Iruka dashed behind his desk.

"Shut the window!" he barked, yanking open the main drawer. He silently thanked whatever deity had seen fit to bless him with great organizational skills as he swiflty located a small blank scroll, a brush, and a bottle of ink. Kakashi wrestled with the window, struggling against an unnatural new resistance. Iruka began to chant. The screams of the children made it hard to think straight. He concentrated on creating the ward, voice low, keeping his hands steady so that each brushstroke was sharp and precise.

Some of the children began to cough.

Iruka felt Kakashi's chakra flare briefly, and heard the window close with a _clack_. Iruka darted over and pressed the ward to the glass, watching as a thin patina of frost radiated from it like a spider's web.

The children fell silent.


End file.
